Lost in Translation
by jonesboness
Summary: Two cousins wake up in a foreign land—naked and confused—only to be found by a group of dwarves who speak a language they don't understand. Will they ever find their way home? Or will love make them stay? Fili/OC Kili/OC


**PROLOGUE**

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Annie had never gone though the stereotypical rebellious phase as a teenager.

She had heard all the half-whispered, giggly stories about other people her age—sneaking out at night to go to unauthorized parties with unauthorized dates, shoplifting, drinking whatever cheap, lukewarm beer they could get their hands on, occasionally smoking a cigarette or getting a tiny tattoo.

Annie had heard it all, but she'd never been part of it. She'd been too busy being the baby of the family—coddled by parents who knew her entire schedule and would grill her if she took twenty minutes getting home from cross-country practice instead of the usual fifteen. But that was okay—most of the time, she really didn't feel like she was missing out on too much.

Well . . . most of the time.

Annie had just graduated from secondary school a month ago. It was an odd sensation—like one chapter of her life had ended, and the other was taking much too long to begin. She felt stuck. Stalled. In limbo. Just sort of drifting along as the empty days yawned before her, nothing to do until she moved to college in the fall. Annie hadn't ever had this problem with the summertime before—usually, when she wasn't playing club sports, she was hanging out with her friends—but it seemed like everyone had vanished this year, busy with their own changing lives.

Annie was _supposed_ to be visiting her sister, Spencer, for a few weeks—road tripping, like they'd always planned to do after Annie graduated—but apparently there was suddenly a huge case that Spencer just _had_ to work on. It was on television and in all the local papers, and Spencer sent her apologies along with an explanation that it was really, really important for her career. So the sisterly bonding had been pushed back to next summer. Even though Spencer wouldn't have been able to see it over the phone, Annie had smiled and said that it was fine, she understood, and good luck on the case—all the while fighting the urge to heave a disappointed (but not really surprised) sigh.

It was with this sense of aimlessness and boredom that Annie had agreed to travel to her Aunt Margaret's house down in Hawke's Bay to visit her favorite cousin, Emily, for three weeks.

Annie was excited at the prospect—she had never traveled alone before, but she was an adult now. She was leaving home in the fall—she could prove to herself, and to her parents, that she was mature enough to handle three days of self-reliance and responsibility.

Her father had been worried, wringing his hands at the idea of his baby girl on a twenty-hour (not counting rest- and sleep-stops) road trip all alone. But, after some gentle chastising from her mother, they'd reached a compromise: Annie's entire itinerary was planned almost to the minute. She would be staying only in highly-reputable hotels, taking only busy streets, eating only in family restaurants, and—most importantly—she was to _call home_ every two hours, and before bed, every night. After she reached her Aunt's house, she would be staying three weeks before driving back home again.

The arrangement put a bit of a damper on Annie's mood. She might not feel like an adult yet, exactly, but she certainly wasn't a little kid anymore. Did she really need to have her hand held like this from a thousand miles away?

This was Annie's second night on the road, and things were already going to crap. This morning, she'd gotten all turned around somewhere in Bridge Pā. Her GPS had gone haywire, which Annie suspected was because all technology lived to spite her. She'd wasted most of the day on dusty back roads, lined by nothing but trees, trees, trees—not a single building or road sign to be found for miles at a time. She'd dutifully called her father every two hours, as promised, and had had to put up with him ranting and raving in her ear about the whole venture being a terrible idea while she tried desperately to find her bearings.

Annie had eventually—miraculously—stumbled upon the highway once again, but by then it was early evening. And she was not willing to risk those dumb sign-less roads in the dark, so she'd pulled into the first motel she could find and asked for a room. This had sent her father into conniptions over the phone, but _oh freaking well, dad, do you expect me to sleep in the car?_ After another twenty minutes of listening to her father list all of the reasons she wasn't ready for this and she should just come home right now and how they could just visit her Aunt later all together, Annie had cut him off with an abrupt goodnight and hung up the phone.

It took her an extra day to arrive at Aunt Margaret's house, but by then, she was all cranky and exhausted and sick to death of feeling like a _child_ and being told what to do all the time and just _accepting_ it like a good little girl. The only thing that really lightened her mood was her cousin Emily, who had thrown her arms around her shoulders the moment she had stepped out of the car.

Annie and Emily had always been close—when they were younger (back when they lived next door to one another), they would lay back in the forest behind Emily's house for hours while the afternoon sunlight poured in from between the leaves and warmed their stomachs. They would giggle about the most ridiculous things and dance around through the trees and to Annie, it was like the jungles she had seen in the movies, like in Tarzan, only there weren't giant apes roaming around. (Though she always promised herself to look out for them. Just in case.)

When Annie moved away—and as they'd grown older—they'd grown apart. What with school and extracurricular activities and friends taking over their lives—but there was one thing for sure. No matter how long they were apart, everything fell back into place when they got together again, like no time had passed at all.

The first two weeks at Emily's house passed by in a whirlwind.

Emily was still as wild as ever and they spent the majority of their time hiking, cliff jumping, and swimming around in the salty ocean. It was everything she needed. For the first time in forever, Annie didn't have her parents breathing down her neck, telling her what to do—she was responsible for _herself._ She was finally feeling like an _adult_.

Little did she know how much she would miss her parents protective ways once she was without them.

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Annie jerked awake when something soft walloped her hard in the side. Frowning, she peeked with bleary eyes over her shoulder in the direction of the attack. Emily, the obvious culprit with the throw pillow still in hand, loomed over the back of the couch with a wide grin on face.

"What?" Annie croaked.

Emily's demeanour was unyielding, the determined set in her gray-eyes and the cock in her hips clear signs of her seriousness. When she addressed her, it was with a tone exuberant enough to penetrate the tired fog still clouding her mind. "Come on, get up!"

Annie rolled over onto her stomach, "Emily, it's," she looked to the clock on the wall and groaned. "God, it's three in the morning."

"I want to show you something," Emily whispered eagerly.

"Can't it wait until morning?"

This earned Annie another whack upside the head with the cushion, "It won't be the same in the morning!"

Growling in frustration when she realized Emily wasn't going to let up any time soon, Annie hefted herself up into a seated position. "What won't?" she grumbled, trying to rub the sleep from her eyes.

"The pond."

Annie paused and looked up at Emily like she'd lost her mind. "You want to show me a pond?" She asked slowly, and when Emily nodded, Annie let out another groan. "What for?"

A wide grin stretched over Emily's face.

"Have you ever gone skinny-dipping?"

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Emily had always been the adventurous one.

There weren't a lot of things that her cousin was afraid of. In fact, there really wasn't anything that scared her at all—she was fearless in Annie's eyes, and she knew Emily had the guts to prove it. Back when they went to the same primary school, she took every dare with eager hands and confident grins, never once thinking about the consequences, never once considering the possible dangers.

When the girls in her class had challenged her to climb the massive tree at recess, just outside the confines of their playground, Emily had folded her arms across her chest. _"Piece of cake,"_ she'd declared with her proudest smirk, as if climbing the old, enormous oak with the decaying branches wouldn't be a daunting task at all.

But climb it she did—even despite the constrictions of her uniform skirt, black Mary-Janes, and knee-high stockings.

And even though she hadn't made it to the top—Miss. McAllister had made sure of that, when she'd found out about the dare and had come bursting out of the school and shrieked for Emily to come down—Emily had, at least, climbed farther and higher than any of the other girls had. It seemed as though nothing scared her cousin—there was no tree too high, no place too dark, no challenge too crazy. She'd do anything.

Heck, she'd once swallowed a _penny!_

As they grew older, Emily's shenanigans became more extreme—sneaking out to take her parent's jeep out for joy rides in the middle of the night, egging her math teacher's home and stealing mannequins from store windows. With such a laid-back mother and father—(freelance photographers who were one of those hippie families that hung framed paintings of eggplants in their kitchens)—Emily could get away with almost everything.

And for some reason, Annie always found herself being dragged in . . . like she was now.

The pond Emily had been raving about was undeniably beautiful. The water was clean and clear and it was ringed by shelves of rock. A small waterfall cascaded from one of the higher shelves and the stream babbled away further into the trees along a rocky riverbed. The grass grew to her knees and there were wildflowers everywhere.

"Here it is," Emily said, already pulling off her top. "I like to come here sometimes to be by myself—especially on nights when the moon is this big."

Annie nodded as her cousin dropped her top on the banks of the pond, where the grass was thinner. "It's gorgeous," she breathed, eyes roaming over the sparkling water.

"Isn't it?" Emily pulled off the last of her clothing and stepped into to water, pushing her long brown hair over her shoulder as she called out, "Hurry in! The water's perfect!"

Annie stood off a ways and tugged at the sleeves of her sweatshirt, nibbling on her bottom lip. She had never gone skinny-dipping before (even though she'd told Emily that she _had_ on their way up)—and the thought of swimming around in unfamiliar waters in the _nude_ caused Annie to feel all sorts of uncomfortable. She just didn't . . . do things like this.

Annie leaned forward and stared down into the dark, murky water. "I can't see the bottom," she said, hoping Emily would ignore the waiver in her voice.

"Nothing's going to grab at you, Annie—there aren't even fishes in here," her cousin promised, stepping deeper into the pond until it brushed against her collarbones. "Come on, live a little!" she grinned.

The air was sticky and hot, and Annie's blonde hair fell limp and slightly damp around her forehead as she brushed it aside. Even though fall was fast approaching—it was almost late September—the sweltering summer heat still tormented Hawke's Bay, refusing to relent its warmth.

Over these last two weeks, Annie had found herself breaking out of her shell—making her own decisions, thinking less about the consequences and being much more adventurous then she was used to. Whether it was because of her free-spirited cousin or the fact that she was finally growing into herself, she didn't know.

But what she _did_ know, was that she wasn't going to be a child anymore. She was finally going to live—even if that meant doing something as ridiculous as swimming naked in the middle of the night.

Annie let out a deep breath and kicked off her boots. "Fine," she grumbled, unable to keep the small, nervous smile off her face. "But if something bites my butt, I'm blaming you."

Emily laughed and splashed at Annie when she stepped into the warm water, causing her to squeal.

The cousins spent the next hour splashing around in the cool creek, jumping off rocks and floating lazily on the surface. The moon was looming brightly above the middle of the pond where Annie and Emily wadded, sparkling off their wet shoulders and glittering on the dark waters surrounding them.

That's when they felt it.

A pull, a shift in the stillness—something curving the water around the edges of the moon that mirriored the growing ripples. Annie and Emily didn't notice it at first (too busy seeing who could hold their breath the longest), but when the both of them began to have trouble getting themselves back afloat, they quickly began to panic.

"Emily?" Annie pumped her arms desperately as the pond tried to pull her body under water. It was unlike anything she'd ever felt before, the current so strong that it shot up her nose and into her mouth, leaving her gurgling for air. The shift in the water had been so sudden, so random, that Annie couldn't keep up—and she was left clawing for something to hold onto. "W-What's happening?!" She cried.

"I don't know!" Emily yelled, moving her body so violently Annie could hardly hear her. "Ann—!"

Her cousin's screams were suddenly cut off and Annie felt her heart drop into the pit of her stomach.

" _Emily!_ "

There were many things that Annie was scared of: the dark, being alone, loosing a family member or getting in a car crash. They were normal fears, ones that you'd find in the average human-being. But as Annie slipped deeper and deeper into the murky water below her, she came to realize that all those feelings of fear were miniscule to the terror felt when one was about to die.

There, in the darkness of the pond, Annie slipped even deeper. Her breath hitched in the column of her throat, the darkness and the cold water slipping into her mouth and suffocating her. She had to get out, she had to _go_.

Annie let out one last long, blood-curdling scream, arms reaching into the night sky for something to hold onto—

Everything went black.

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 _Any questions – PM me! Please review! Thanks for giving this story a chance!_

 _(Also, this prologue is just a rough draft, when I'm finished with the story, I'm going to go back over everything and edit and add more material—so hang in there, guys.)_


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